The rusting relic of a failed 1950s development scheme, the Salton Sea is a barren California landscape often seen as a symbol of the failed American Dream. First-time director Alma Har'el visits this poetically fruitful terrain and finds there a motley cast, including a bipolar seven-year-old, a lovelorn high school football star, and an octogenarian poet-prophet. Together they make up a triptych of manhood in its decisive moments, populating the Salton Sea's land of thwarted opportunity.
True to her roots as a photographer, video artist, and music video director, Har'el crafts an adamantly atypical and artistically innovative film—a dreamlike poem that sets the personal stories of these distinctive yet familiar characters to a stylized amalgam of observational documentary and choreographed dance, with music by Beirut and Bob Dylan, all cast against the atmospheric scenery of the titular ghost town. The result is a moving and extraordinary documentary experience—an evocative, symbolic portrait of those who live in cultural obscurity.
DAFilms.com is powered by Doc Alliance, a creative partnership of 7 key European documentary film festivals. Our aim is to advance the documentary genre, support its diversity and promote quality creative documentary films.
Please choose one of following payment gates you'd like to pay through:
or subscribe to our online cinema
and watch over 2000 films in your browser:
By clicking this button, you declare that you are over the age of 18 and confirm both your consent to the DAFilms Terms and Conditions and that you have familiarised yourself with the [Principles of Personal Data Processing]. By making a payment, you are also requesting that the selected content be provided to you immediately upon confirmation of your order.
